Anyone considering music education budget cuts should spend some time listening to Neil Moore, Founder & CEO of Simply Music, a man with an amazing story and a passion for the importance of music. Yesterday I posted a quote from Neil from my book. Here’s an excerpt of the audio interview:

Neil Moore is the founder of Simply Music, a company that provides piano instruction methodology that Neil developed. When I interviewed him in the research for my book Everything We Needed to Know About Business, We Learned Playing Music, he spoke of the importance of music in people’s lives, as expressed by the participants of the focus groups that he speaks to:

“When I get in rooms of people, and I have lots of opportunity to do this, I say, ‘Tell me what it really means to you that you have the ability to play music.’ And it is eye-opening when people who’ve been able to keep music as a companion are asked, ‘What are the five most important things in life – period?’ Even though the order is different, people usually say:

❑ Their spiritual relationship
❑ Their relationship with their spouse and children
❑ Their physical well-being
❑ Their financial well-being
❑ Music

“It might be in a different order for different people, but typically people who’ve kept music late into their lives rank it as being one of the five most important things in their life.”

Simply amazing. If we take music education out of our schools, I wonder what we can replace it with that people will consider one of the five most important things in their lives?

Brief excerpts from the interviews that I compiled researching my new book. You’ll get a sense of the joy that I experienced discussing the power of playing music with these amazing CEOs and business leaders/musicians!